Various kinds of lights are commonly used for assistance and guidance. For example, white lights on cars can be used to illuminate roads in low light or no light conditions, and colored lights on traffic signals can be used to deliver information such as whether a driver should stop or proceed. Lights can also be used to identify locations such as in the case of the lights used to illuminate a bridge as well as to identify the presence of a moving object such as in the case of automobile break lights. Numerous analogous uses of lights can also be found in a myriad of other industries and applications.
At times when there are multiple light sources it can sometimes be difficult to decipher the significance of any one particular light source. For example, if the city street lights or lights used to illuminate a street sign are red, then it can be confusing for a driver to determine which lights serve as a signal to stop and which are merely used to identify the location of a sign or a street. Additionally, a plurality of light sources might be able to identify a plurality of locations or objects, but those sources cannot provide any information regarding individual locations or objects within that plurality. For example, when driving at night, headlights and break lights can make automobiles visible, but they cannot give any additional information about individual automobiles such as whether the vehicle is a police car or whether the vehicle has a certain level of security clearance.
Based on the foregoing limitations of current lighting systems, it would, therefore, be desirable to design a lighting system and/or lighting system components that can deliver more information than lighting systems currently known in the art, and to utilize such systems and components to detect and/or distinguish light sources.